Six weeks of Political Science Study Mission (PSSM) research, articles, readings and analyses has taken me through the dynasties of China to the founding struggles of modern China to today's contemporary China, which is grappling with being both the country with the fastest economic growth of the world and the country with its rural areas housing some of the world's most impoverished populations.
With regards to poverty and underdevelopment, what has consistently appeared is the trade off between economic development and dedicated social welfare, which I think corroborates at least somewhat with my opinions about charity and poverty.
If one dedicates government budget to public spending, such as health and education, there is a social safety net where minimum levels of welfare are met. However, it rarely stops here, because this is seen as stagnation in the eyes of a country that wants to press forward economically. Welfare eventually has to switch hands from public to private, and before long decentralization, where government transfers the reins of hospitals and schools to the market, leads to social welfare institutions competing on the market for their own resources and capital in order to stay afloat.
In a nutshell, when welfare becomes a privatised issue, the costs are always transfered to the consumers (in accordance with economic math). This is because non-private ventures are at odds with profit-driven aims, which are fundamental to efficient economics of firms in the private sector. Before long, even the smallest social inequalities of the poor in these rural villages are magnified, as the poorest of the lot benefit the least from market reform and economic development because they are too poor to participate.
What has always happened is that those hospitals that once guaranteed health care services become too expensive or inaccessible to the poorest (ironically the ones who need the services the most) whenever those hospitals are forced to fend for themselves on the market.
And I think China is worth giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not the government is honest about its efforts to take care of the poor. If we look at, perhaps, Sub-saharan Africa, one can rightfully accuse corrupt governments of conceited efforts towards poverty reduction. But because China's policies are quite possibly an honest attempt at dealing with the issues of its rural poor, the intentions of the government does not confound with this issue of the trade off between economic development and social welfare dedication.
Once again, it appears that any meaningful attempt at targeting poverty should leave the market - the corporations, the economy, the private bank loans - out of the picture. Based on the historical evidence, public/social/welfare doesn't mix well with private endeavours (which I would believe is why even private firms that announce their wish to be socially responsible have to engage in an activity as perverse and convoluted as Corporate Social Responsibility, which still has profits as the bottom-line).
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
On Charity And Poverty
It's funny what seeing one homeless man sleeping at a void deck can do to me on the way home. I'm going to draw in lots of possible correlations on this one, so bear with me.
Poverty grows as social inequality increases. I think a great deal of why poverty exists is because the people it may concern - the upper and middle class ones who have the capacity to do something about poverty - are in fact apathetic, unaware or tolerant of poverty, especially if it can be visually avoided or is perceived to be 'too distant for one to make an impact by helping'.
GDP rarely decreases (poor regions tend to have stagnant GDPs as opposed to declining ones). Globalization and modernization is to a large extent facilitated by economic growth. Economic growth is borne out of liberalization along with all its other social collaterals - greater individualism, increased profiteering, decreased social interaction, perhaps greater alienation between persons. Technology makes us communicate far more over cyberspace than among persons, and transactions are increasingly made through machines, eliminating the need for cashiers to serve patrons. The lonely crowd phenomenon appears quite real to me, as population size grows but traditional and genuine social interaction - heartfelt conversations over coffee - becomes obsolete.
There's no surprise then if sympathy for the disadvantaged and poor is on the decline. It is precisely what economic growth, development and progress needs - an upper class exploitation of the poor, so that we can have more capital to fund market innovations. Social inequality leads to a middle class - the fence-sitting culprits who pragmatically go with the flow and often do not make a principled stand. All one needs to do is to buy the vote of the middle class, and you get political power. Once more, no surprises on whose side - the rich or the poor - the middle class is going to be on. This is also evident when government policy is scrutinized. Some policies, even in 'humane' developed societies, are clearly depriving the poor of welfare often in the pursuit of other nationalistic (and often economic) goals. But after the shock factor of the atrocious policy wears off, the resultant lack of social revolt against these policies pretty much demonstrates that most of society does not want change in favour of the poor enough to do much about it.
But that is not to say that social inequality is more serious now or that there has never been such a terribly blind eye turned towards destitution of the poor in the course of history. I think that we are innately geared towards such apathy as long as we are not the lot getting all the hard luck, and neither am I 'blaming' this on our 'nature'. If this is our nature then to some extent it is instinctive - maybe comparable to when an animal ignores a dying member of its species and moves along. I would highly believe that our 'uncaring' nature towards the poor is a significant causal factor for our species to have the capacity for social hierarchy, political systems and resultant class differences and inequalities.
But then again, it is vital that we - the vast majority that is well off enough - do not determine 'ought' from 'is'. The possibility that it is in our nature does not justify the slippery slope that poverty is normal (and therefore acceptable). Social hierarchies and political systems may have resulted from our lack of concern for the disadvantaged, but it definitely does not follow that an uncaring nature existed for the purpose of creating social hierarchies.
What then to make of charity and poverty? My guess is as good as anybody's. But if I were to think of an answer I'd pick from a potential lot, I would consider two possible and straightforward solutions.
One: Make people care. This is somewhat crazy I suppose because history has shown that going against the grain of human nature has always resulted in externalities whose costs have exceeded that of the benefits gained from going against human nature. One instance is communism where the self-interested need of the individual is violated; it just doesn't work and ends in disaster. But at this juncture, knowing that a major stumbling block towards poverty reduction is that people just do not care enough especially when the atrocity is invisible or too distant, it appears possible to encourage greater sympathy because we know what to target. Consider education avenues where moral values of human rights and compassion can be inculcated, make the plight of the poor more salient and meaningful, and (this last point appears necessary to me) keep the 'corporation' out of this. Yeah, perhaps we'll need their funding and commitment, but if any corporation is willing to help, do it without your company logo in sight. This is wishful thinking, but it would make sense not to commit the 'Corporate America' errors of the past, where branding and marketing led to the commercialization of once-sacred emotions and values. Profit-driven money simply cheapens any venture to me, and this is ingrained in the psychology of our species: when an avid reader is paid to read books, he/she actually loses the interest to read in the absence of monetary rewards.
Two: The prevalent form of aid we tend to see in the world today. Create avenues of charity and gear them towards the capacities of 'uncaring' individuals, such that the poor get help even if the helpers do not mean it. One instance is compulsory community service programmes in colleges, veiled as 'good to have's for resume-building. I don't particularly like this option for its obvious weakness of not attacking the root of the issue and its blatant use of poverty reduction as a means to some other self-serving end, but it avoids the 'clash with human nature' problem. As the scientific and historical wisdom goes, short of regressing back to a completely egalitarian hunter-gatherer society, we will always face the issue of poverty.
-
Honestly though, as a fuddy-duddy (and perhaps preachy to some) deontological digression from my clinically neutral take on the issue, I believe option one, and perhaps its 'people SHOULD care' variant, is the only option worth bothering to take if one wishes to meaningfully embark on the eradication of poverty.
Poverty grows as social inequality increases. I think a great deal of why poverty exists is because the people it may concern - the upper and middle class ones who have the capacity to do something about poverty - are in fact apathetic, unaware or tolerant of poverty, especially if it can be visually avoided or is perceived to be 'too distant for one to make an impact by helping'.
GDP rarely decreases (poor regions tend to have stagnant GDPs as opposed to declining ones). Globalization and modernization is to a large extent facilitated by economic growth. Economic growth is borne out of liberalization along with all its other social collaterals - greater individualism, increased profiteering, decreased social interaction, perhaps greater alienation between persons. Technology makes us communicate far more over cyberspace than among persons, and transactions are increasingly made through machines, eliminating the need for cashiers to serve patrons. The lonely crowd phenomenon appears quite real to me, as population size grows but traditional and genuine social interaction - heartfelt conversations over coffee - becomes obsolete.
There's no surprise then if sympathy for the disadvantaged and poor is on the decline. It is precisely what economic growth, development and progress needs - an upper class exploitation of the poor, so that we can have more capital to fund market innovations. Social inequality leads to a middle class - the fence-sitting culprits who pragmatically go with the flow and often do not make a principled stand. All one needs to do is to buy the vote of the middle class, and you get political power. Once more, no surprises on whose side - the rich or the poor - the middle class is going to be on. This is also evident when government policy is scrutinized. Some policies, even in 'humane' developed societies, are clearly depriving the poor of welfare often in the pursuit of other nationalistic (and often economic) goals. But after the shock factor of the atrocious policy wears off, the resultant lack of social revolt against these policies pretty much demonstrates that most of society does not want change in favour of the poor enough to do much about it.
But that is not to say that social inequality is more serious now or that there has never been such a terribly blind eye turned towards destitution of the poor in the course of history. I think that we are innately geared towards such apathy as long as we are not the lot getting all the hard luck, and neither am I 'blaming' this on our 'nature'. If this is our nature then to some extent it is instinctive - maybe comparable to when an animal ignores a dying member of its species and moves along. I would highly believe that our 'uncaring' nature towards the poor is a significant causal factor for our species to have the capacity for social hierarchy, political systems and resultant class differences and inequalities.
But then again, it is vital that we - the vast majority that is well off enough - do not determine 'ought' from 'is'. The possibility that it is in our nature does not justify the slippery slope that poverty is normal (and therefore acceptable). Social hierarchies and political systems may have resulted from our lack of concern for the disadvantaged, but it definitely does not follow that an uncaring nature existed for the purpose of creating social hierarchies.
What then to make of charity and poverty? My guess is as good as anybody's. But if I were to think of an answer I'd pick from a potential lot, I would consider two possible and straightforward solutions.
One: Make people care. This is somewhat crazy I suppose because history has shown that going against the grain of human nature has always resulted in externalities whose costs have exceeded that of the benefits gained from going against human nature. One instance is communism where the self-interested need of the individual is violated; it just doesn't work and ends in disaster. But at this juncture, knowing that a major stumbling block towards poverty reduction is that people just do not care enough especially when the atrocity is invisible or too distant, it appears possible to encourage greater sympathy because we know what to target. Consider education avenues where moral values of human rights and compassion can be inculcated, make the plight of the poor more salient and meaningful, and (this last point appears necessary to me) keep the 'corporation' out of this. Yeah, perhaps we'll need their funding and commitment, but if any corporation is willing to help, do it without your company logo in sight. This is wishful thinking, but it would make sense not to commit the 'Corporate America' errors of the past, where branding and marketing led to the commercialization of once-sacred emotions and values. Profit-driven money simply cheapens any venture to me, and this is ingrained in the psychology of our species: when an avid reader is paid to read books, he/she actually loses the interest to read in the absence of monetary rewards.
Two: The prevalent form of aid we tend to see in the world today. Create avenues of charity and gear them towards the capacities of 'uncaring' individuals, such that the poor get help even if the helpers do not mean it. One instance is compulsory community service programmes in colleges, veiled as 'good to have's for resume-building. I don't particularly like this option for its obvious weakness of not attacking the root of the issue and its blatant use of poverty reduction as a means to some other self-serving end, but it avoids the 'clash with human nature' problem. As the scientific and historical wisdom goes, short of regressing back to a completely egalitarian hunter-gatherer society, we will always face the issue of poverty.
-
Honestly though, as a fuddy-duddy (and perhaps preachy to some) deontological digression from my clinically neutral take on the issue, I believe option one, and perhaps its 'people SHOULD care' variant, is the only option worth bothering to take if one wishes to meaningfully embark on the eradication of poverty.
Friday, 8 May 2009
A Statistical Discontentment
Hans Rosling is a really respectable statistician who has been through stuff before he talks. And I've never seen a data analysis so excitingly and elegantly presented as this, especially with the urgency that is symbolic of the need for those who can do something about world poverty to do it already.
This is not to say that every developed country should stick its nose into the business of LDCs, because I don't think anyone is in a position to say that poor people need our help. But in empowering people ranging from students to social helpers and policy makers to entrepreneurs who can provide innovative services and solutions, the poor can gain opportunities to improve their lives as they deem fit. I do believe that there are some things that are universally desired, such as the ability to live longer and experience less suffering, and there are economic improvements that can eradicate the factors that shut masses of people out from being able to lead less agonized lives characterized by a lack of resources such as food and water.
Hans Rosling demonstrates in his presentation that a major problem exists when we often lump people together into countries, regions and whole continents. With access to good data, which actually does exist, people who have the means to cater to individual groups even within small states can do what it takes to provide proper and better targeted aid such as HIV diagnostic and prevention measures. For example, this is highlighted when the social classes of Niger and South Africa are compared (2003 statistics). The bottom 20% of Niger's population rank among the lowest in terms of child survival (75.6%) and GDP per capita in the world ($102 GDP per capita), and the richest 20% of South Africa have a 97.5% child survival rate and fare almost equally with the richest in the world with $30400 per capita GDP. And yet people are constantly guilty of saying that Africans need help. But it is hard for most of us to comprehend or come to know of this because of the lack of open data available.
As Hans Rosling states, "we find that students get very excited when they can use this, and even more policy makers and the corporate sectors would like to see how the world is changing. Now, why doesn't this take place? Why are we not using the data we have? We have data in the United Nations, in the national statistical agencies and in universities and other non-governmental organizations. Because the data is hidden down in the databases. And the public is there, and the Internet is there, but we have still not used it effectively. All that information we saw changing in the world does not include publicly-funded statistics. There are some web pages like this, you know, but they take some nourishment down from the databases, but people put prices on them, stupid passwords and boring statistics."
Tell me about it. I've scoured the internet for information at times when doing term papers and assignments only to find a horde of knowledge tucked neatly into little packages with price tags on them.
Sure, when I publish a journal, I would definitely like to be credited for it. I wouldn't be someone who pursues business profits, but I'd still like a salary because I need to eat, and I do expect a certain degree of remuneration for the prestige I hold that has been grounded upon years of intellectual rigour, dedication and perfecting knowledge in a certain field of expertise, and because nothing would suck more than to study, do research and spend years mentally debating over issues of the world for the intellectual betterment of mankind and not get paid for it.
Because one can't say for sure how an academic should be paid, and who should do the paying, it is left to the free market system which dictates that I get paid by users of my work. That means no more open sharing of knowledge, because no one wants to be responsible for the education of the world. The utility of one's work is directly linked to the combined utility of those who desire it, transacted by money. And because, more disgustingly, some people see a market opportunity and profits in being middle men and agents for the dissemination of information.
I respect that scholars and academics desire credit and recognition for their work. But because of some reason that money is now the only practical means for acknowledgement, much of the world's intellectual journals, scholarly writings, statistics, data and wisdom are now largely inaccessible to the most convenient means of access - the internet - which is a huge pity. I suppose there are probably scholars and academics who are also guilty of being only motivated by money when they work, but I believe the system churns out certain types of people (coupled with the decline of philosophy in the 19th century and its collapse in the 20th century as the world moved towards capitalistic and economic practicality). Whatever it is, it doesn't change the fact of the matter that we have a glorious opportunity to be wiser from the exposure to such knowledge, but the knowledge is just not publicly available.
It would really be good to one day see greater information sharing and access so as to reduce uncertainty and ignorance especially with regards to dire decisions to be made and preconceived notions of the world.
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